USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Canaan > The history of Canaan, New Hampshire > Part 51
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council authorized them to build a schoolhouse of brick, two stories high, and to open and establish the first public school in that city. He was elected an honorary member of the Cali- fornia Academy of Sciences, for labor in the field as a botanist. "I was present at a ball in Don Abel Stearns' casa, when the managers expelled General Fremont and a woman he conducted there, and who was not his wife. At one time I was in the Mor- mon county of San Bernandino with Judge Hayes and was ap- pointed by him special United States district attorney, in the absence of the proper officer, who was then in Rebellion against the government."
As a gatherer of news, he first made known the horrible de- tails of the Mountain Meadow massacre. In January, 1857, he began writing as correspondent for the Alta California, a news- paper published in San Francisco. During this year he was en- gaged in teaching school, making many trips into the moun- tains in search of flowers. On one of them he met two bears in the trail, one a short distance behind the other, both of which turned out. Further along he met a panther whom he and his mule turned out for. In June, 1858, the proprietor of the Alta California sent for him to come to San Francisco. On the 28th he left the latter city for the Fraser River and the scenes of the latest gold excitement. It was the desire of McCrellish, pro- prietor of the Alta to stop the flood of emigration from Cali- fornia to those mines, and no better way was known than to send some one who could describe the hardships to be endured with so little chance of success. His own description of his journey was written and forwarded to the Alta, some parts of which may be interesting :
"The summer of 1858 will long be remembered in the annals of many a sad fellow upon the Pacific coast, who with bright hopes and excited imagination, threw away what fine chances remained to him in California and Oregon, and wishing to be the first man there rushed off, expecting to gather wealth from the golden sands of the Fraser River. Hustling themselves into crowded ships to get to Victoria, and here buying or building canoes, they paddled across the stormy Gulf of Georgia, 75 miles to the mouth of Fraser River, where with muscles firmly
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braced, they stemmed the fierce torrent that rushed down through the Cascade Mountains. Many of those adventurers lost their lives in those whirling waters. Many lost the earn- ings of years. A few gathered gold and came away to enjoy it. I was upon the editorial staff of the Alta California at San Francisco. In the interests of humanity it was desirable to check the increasing rush to the mines, which could be produc- tive only of misery and poverty in thousands of cases. With this object in view, I was directed by the manager of the paper to proceed to Victoria, and thence to the scenes of excitement along the Fraser River, as high up as Fort George, in L. 60º N.
"I took passage with two companies of soldiers bound up the Columbia River 120 miles to Fort Vancouver. Here was one of the sublimest spectacles the lover of nature ever beheld. The snow-crowned monarchs towering far above the clouds, their cold white summits glittering in the sunlight rose before us. Mt. Adams, Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens, were there in all their grandeur, their massive vastness seemed to fill the horizon. They were sixty to one hundred miles apart, and their great tops seemed to kiss each other, and the breeze which swept from them seemed laden with chilly particles. I have looked upon the tall peaks of the Sierra Nevadas, but these stand alone in all their magnificence and fill the heart with awe, a sense of fullness comes upon you as you gaze upon them towering up to the gates of Heaven."
On the 6th of July he reached Victoria: "2,000 men have gone up, 200 went home on the Panama" the steamer he went on. On the 13th he reached Fort Hope where he remained a week, and then proceeded by steamer to Fort Yale, where the sun rose at 2.30 in the morning. After remaining there a week he returned to Fort Hope, and on the 10th of August was back at Victoria. On the 25th he was at Napa, the place where he first started farming in California. He wrote of Napa "re- visited," "this was once my dreamland, here on the banks of this little river my first dreams of wealth in California took form and grew and were on the point of being realized, but 'the next day came a killing frost.' It was from here I first wrote letters to my friends, assuring them that two seasons at least
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would close my exile. Those days were very happy, because there was so much to hope for; and the memories of them as we came up thronged upon me like pleasant shadows." From there he went to White Sulphur Springs, where McCrellish had sent him to recruit. He returned to San Francisco and was requested to make preparations for a trip overland to Salt Lake City across the plains. "There is excitement in the anticipated dangers and strange scenes I shall encounter. I love it, and shall start out with much pleasure." He left San Francisco on the 2d of Sep- tember, 1858, by boat and reached Sacramento the next day. On the 4th he started by coach with nine others; the next morning they had made but twenty miles and stopped for breakfast. "The host was an Irishman, and he will never be nearer death than he then was until he meets it. Davis took offense at his impudence and would have shot him." The road wound along the south fork of the American river. "There was novelty and grandeur in those massive, round, naked, white rocks." At Placerville they watched for the mail, to learn that it had been attacked by Indians at Goose Creek mountains, the animals were run off and the clothing of the party taken. They climbed to the summit of the Sierras and down again through Eagle Valley, across the Twenty-Six Mile Desert to the sink of the Humboldt River, Alkali Lake. On the 11th they came upon a party of 300 Pah-ute Indians standing along the road, begging for to- bacco, further along they came upon some Shoshones and on the night of the 12th an attempted attack was made upon them by Indians, but as they were prepared the Indians left. On the 23d they reached Salt Lake City. He remained there two weeks meeting and conversing with the Mormons in the streets and in their homes, and sending back letters for the Alta, of what he observed. On the morning of October 2d, he proceeded overland to St. Louis, having received word from McCrellish to go there. The route taken was the one General Johnston took the summer before when he had been sent by the government to subdue the Mormons, and the country showed the traces of their fortifica- tions. They were continually stopped by soldiers and were obliged to give an account of themselves. They passed through Echo Cañon, across Bear River, by Fort Bridger, to Green
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River, along the banks of the Sweetwater, with the Rattlesnake Mountains on one side, through the valley of the Platte to Lar- amie, Fort Kearney. On the 23d of October he reached St. Joseph, Mo., and on the 31st St. Louis, by boat from St. Joseph. To a friend he wrote : "My journey from Salt Lake was long and fatiguing, we ran through a hundred Indian villages, crossed the Rocky Mountains, and all the other mountains on the continent, ate buffalo meat, and chased buffalo bulls, saw the prairie all on fire, and tried to catch prairie dogs; chased mountain goats and ran away from prairie wolves." He left St. Louis the next day for Cincinnati, thence to Columbus, Cleveland and to Syracuse which he reached November 10, where he visited his uncle five days, and then to Albany and New York, from there he went to Worcester and on the 22d of November reached Canaan. "After ten years absence a snowstorm greets me in my old home. While breathing the warmer breezes of the South, I have come to look with dread upon the snow king."
He spent Thanksgiving in the old house, the first for twenty years. He stayed at home until December 11, and then went to Worcester, then to Boston and Cambridge visiting friends, and on the 16th was back in Worcester, to meet W. P. Weeks and to exact a settlement with Eaton, to whom he had sold his in- terest in the Spy, and who had not paid him. He remained there until December 24, and then went to New York where he spent the holidays. On January 6, 1859, he was in Philadelphia and on the 12th set sail for Norfolk and Petersburg, in the in- terests of the Alta. He visited Richmond and Fredericks- burg. On February 10 he was in Washington, where he re- mained until February 19, when he went to New York to see Albert Martin, his brother-in-law and a son of Eleazer Martin, off for California. On March 2 he was in Worcester and on the 5th called on Doctor Gray at Cambridge and gave him all the plants he had collected. He returned to Canaan and on the 14th bade good-by to his mother, intending to return to California. He got as far as the depot and came back. He had made up his mind to join the Masons and called upon Jacob Trussell, who gave him a letter to the lodge in Enfield. During the following months he took the several degrees in So-
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cial Lodge. On May Day he wrote, "I am still lingering like the snowdrifts in this northern latitude. There are some little arrangements which it becomes me to make, to render more easy the path of the old lady who has long lived here rather than to take her away. To remove her it would be necessary to take the old house, the trees and the land along with her, whose heart strings 'round them cling. The fence posts are rotted off, the stone wall has fallen down, the orchard is dying, moss and lichens have overgrown the roofs, rocks and trees; the woodpeckers and the wrens, who always know where the wood is decaying, flit around, always keeping a large branch between themselves and danger. The old lady insists that she is still smart, and is able to take care of all these things; but she sometimes complains of weariness ; her step is often feeble and she is becoming tremulous. She says it is not so, but I, who see her at intervals of long years, observe that like the fences and stone walls she needs to be cared for. Therefore, I am waiting here. Besides these evi- dences of decay and age, several little annoyances have arisen, which seemed to make it imperative to remove. One of these and perhaps the worst, was occasioned by the obstinate pertinacity of an old fellow who thinks the principle of squatter sovereignty applicable to the condition of things in this law-abiding state. He not only seized upon my land, but built his house upon it, and kept so mean a fence that his chickens and stray animals were always in the old lady's garden. I had to have a quarrel, of course ; for how could I tolerate a squatter in my very garden ? I threatened several things, and did get quite angry. I would chop his house down, or dig a deep ditch, or build a high wall, or sue the beggar and - pay all the costs myself. I made several rash resolves, but at length grew considerate; put up a close stout fence of huge rocks, with which all our lands abound and am now convalescent.
"I don't know that I am losing any time by stopping here, I think, in fact, I am making a little daily progress homeward, be- cause I am in a country where it is profitable to watch the various pulsations of the human heart,-in labor, trade and re- ligion,- the three elements that make up human nature in three parts. These are very distinct employments but they have a
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negative connection. Religion may sanctify and purify the mis- erable and friendless wretch for a first-class passage to the Spirit Land, but it is only successful trade and labor well rewarded that secures content and peace of mind. Faith in Divine Provi- dence is at a discount unless unattended with strong and saving effort. 'God's love and care' are very pretty sentiments to talk about, but these people know very well that if they do not pile up the stones and burn the stumps in their fields, all the pro- tection they get comes by way of the poorhouse. In this country everybody but old Daniel Campbell and Nat Currier go to meet- ing; but they put faith only in bone and muscle. There is no excitement, no wildness, no enthusiasm on any subject. The men hoe corn and potatoes, make hay, and plod to church to get the news of the week. The women make butter and cheese, get up 'circles' where some sewing is done and much sympathy is ex- pressed for the poor in Africa and Hindustan, believe in the minister, pray for their friends, and go to church to hear the gospel, of course. Each day is the same, except that the wind is sometimes south and northwest. To sleep, to eat, to labor, to pray, to gossip, is the occupation of the people. No one gets angry but me, no one fights, but many talk! Indeed, if we were to lose the power of speech, our little jealousies and envyings would have no utterance. It is marvelous what a relief it is to be able to express one's sentiments distinctly, particularly where there is no danger of personal injury. Do you care to hear of this quiet country ? It makes no noise in the world, because there is no class here to disturb the peace. The people live by will. They dine each day at 12 o'clock, and the hour is an- nounced by the village bell. They toil hard upon the stingiest and stoniest land, and pay their debts, not so much perhaps from a principle of honesty as from a desire to avoid exposure. They seldom make presents, and they do not give away their subsis- tance. The winter was long and the spring backward, and the frost nipped all the fruit buds, so that we have no apples. Then the drouth came on and for two months there was no rain to ripen the corn and potatoes and fill up the grass bottoms and many fears have been expressed that there was to be a general caving in of nature. The grumblers have been active in their
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vocation, but I think the harvest will not disappoint the hus- bandmen. Indeed, the most inveterate grumbler among them, old Nat C. 'who never knew so bad a season since 1816, when the corn and potatoes were killed in July by the frosts,' now very contentedly says he has a better crop than he had last year.
"Sometimes I think I am staying here too long or that I am going away too soon. I don't know how my happiness depends upon it, yet I would not go alone, if I had the courage and con- fidence of a young man. There is poetry and sentiment and many imaginary pleasures in waiting; but like the redoubtable Miles Standish, I am terrified at the ghost of a 'thundering No!' from the lips of a pretty woman. The sensation is truly dis- mal, and can only be appreciated by similar unfortunates."
The "thundering No" had so many terrors for him that after making two attempts to leave without tempting his fate, he came back each time, in the same state in which he had departed. He continued to linger here until the 14th of October, when he wrote, "I shall leave the old country and go back to the old scenes that have so long had charms for me." My mother had refused him and he started for California. He went to Philadelphia, and returned to New York, where he met his sister Harriet and her daughter, Lilly, who took passage with him to join her husband in San Francisco. On the 28th of October, 1859, at Aspinwall he wrote :
"I had rather be at home building stone fences, digging rocks and picking up dry leaves and occasionally walking up the hill. Perhaps I might have won happiness. I shall have to travel this once more and that is the end." On the 12th of November they landed at the wharf at San Francisco, where he stayed a week and then took steamer for Los Angeles. December 16 he went to San Pedro and on the 20th he wrote, 'I know I am not to remain here." On January 23, 1860, he started for San Fran- cisco again to go to Sacramento, where the Legislature was in session, at the request of the Alta California. The Alta in Feb- ruary asked him to go to the Geysers and Cinnabar mines. He took steamer and on February 23 was at Petaluma, from there he took stage up the valley of the Russian River to Healdsburg. From there he proceeded alone on horseback to the geyser coun-
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try, sometimes finding it more agreeable to walk down the declivities than to lean back and hold on to the hair of his horse's tail. Everywhere was indication of prospectors; hardly a rock but what had been struck by a hammer. Claims had been staked out. The discovery of quicksilver was more startling than that of the precious metals. He remained there writing articles for the Alta until March 13 when he returned to Petaluma and on the 16th was back in San Francisco.
On that day he wrote his mother: "I have but just returned from the mountains where I expected to be gone only six days. I was absent four weeks on compulsion. I went down into one of the worst mountain cañons in the state and it came on to rain, hail and snow so that I was fastened up. The snow covered the tops of all the bushes, so that it was impossible to find the road, and during ten days I remained in the house, looking out in vain for the sun to peer down in upon us. At last he came, melted the snow, and raised the rivers, so that for several days we could not ford them. Do you wish to know what I was doing there ? Nothing. I went partly for my own pleasure, partly to look after some rich quicksilver mines, supposed to be buried in the rocks of that country. I found the cinnabar in great quan- tities and some day it will be very valuable. But probably I shall not live to see it. It was a wild region, and I was well repayed, although I endured more hardship, and grew old faster than upon any other expedition I have ever undertaken. It was among the geysers, the boiling and steaming springs of sulphur, alum, ammonia, and various other chemicals are constantly is- suing from the earth. The earth is all on fire there, and as we walk over it carefully, it has the resonance of a hollow chamber beneath. I trod very carefully over those burning cones, for it reminded me of what you used to teach me of 'the smoke of their torments ascending forever' and of the fire and brimstone lake. Here was almost positive proof of its existence. In the midst of all this fire the most beautiful flowers were blooming, and beautiful trees growing. Two days since I came down out of this summer and winter region. I don't think there is another place like it in the world,- so difficult to get at or to get away from, nor so fearfully interesting when you are there."
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On the 23d of March he dined with his sister Harriet in San Francisco. He remained there until the 11th of April when he was sent to Sacramento on political business, to oppose what was called the Bulkhead bill. In the meantime the Alta had been thinking of sending him overland to St. Louis, and on the 17th he began his preparations, but was unable to get stage for a month. On the 21st he was in Sacramento again to carry con- gratulations to Governor Downey for vetoing the Bulkhead bill. On the 6th of May he returned to Los Angeles. On the 18th he wrote, "Have been waiting for two weeks for overland stage to take me to St. Louis, am impatient to get home. I have been a wanderer so long, homeless and unsatisfied." On the 20th he went to San Pedro to receive the governor, and on the 24th of May started from Los Angeles overland by the Butterfield route. On the 26th they were crossing the Colorado desert, on the 28th at the Colorado River ferry he stayed a week. On the 4th of June he was at Gila City. On the 11th the stage was full, so he could not get away. While waiting here he wrote his mother, "I did not intend to write you till I had crossed the country ; till I was realizing the dreams of my life in my old home with the dim and intangible shadows of the past glancing around me; till I could see the old graveyard and the slabs that indicate my des- tiny; the old church where I sang psalms and never listened to the sermons of the sanctified saint 'who washed his garments from the blood of sinners who ceased not to harden their hearts'; the old mother whom I love the stronger as I go down myself into the vale of years, and whose pathway it is left for me to smooth and make pleasant. I, who have never known her, the first to leave her in early boyhood, and, after her children one by ·one, have left her shattered frame drifting upon the rocks of old age, the last to return and give her confidence as she travels down to the foot of the hill of life and till I have greeted an- other and a younger in whom I feel a strong interest, and whom I wish to be near. I have been dreaming today, oh, so delight- ful of the old home and the rest I shall take there, the solace from care, from fatigue, from the world, with my books, my music, my friends, and my thoughts, that I feel exalted, and I have waked suddenly and find myself still bound upon the desert banks of
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this Colorado River, the least interesting river in the world, which swells by us a flood of muddy waters, brought down from uninhabitable regions."
On the 15th he had taken stage and reached Tucson, then to Messilla, N. M., Fort Chadbourne, Texas, Belknap, Sherman and Fort Smith, Ark. From here he wrote home, June 29, 1860: "I am coming along slowly and shall reach you after awhile. I have had a very hard journey, and have sometimes thought I should never get through. I arrived here two days ago and intend to rest, for I am weak and nearly sick. I can scarcely walk and my throat troubles me badly, but I shall not remain here long, I am anxious to get to a stopping place. I have taken some pretty hard journeys in my life but this is the hardest and most dan- gerous. I never wish to go over that ground again. I have been on the way over sixty days and have not heard from any- body in that time."
On the 6th of July he reached St. Louis after having traveled a distance of 3,096 miles from San Francisco. He went to Columbus, Ohio, and from there to Philadelphia, which he reached July 9 and then home. He remained home until De- cember 4, when he started for New York, Philadelphia and Wash- ington. On February 12 he was in Philadelphia again and on April 13 was in Washington; from there he went into Vir- ginia, to Fairfax Station, Manassas, Centerville and Bristow. This trip seems to have been made more for his own amusement, writing not so much for the Alta as for other papers. He came back home and remained through the summer and winter until January. On August 2, 1861, he printed the first copy of The Reporter, setting up his own type and from his own press print- ing the copies for free distribution. The second copy was printed on August 6, the third on August 21, of which he said "it has made a great sensation. One would think half the town were hit by the talk." The last copy was printed September 14, in which he says: "The Reporter is under no obligations to reveal its intentions. He prints for his own amusement, upon his own account, and at such times as he sees proper. So please don't ask him any questions. If his own efforts recoil and make him sick, he is not going to own it. If any other person takes a
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disgust at what he says, perhaps it will be wise for that person to make a great fuss about it ; call The Reporter hard names and bad names; threaten not to speak to him; nor to sing with him; at any rate be furiously indignant, and when the indignation has effervesced, it will be quite proper for such persons to be ashamed of themselves." In October he received a proposition from McCrellish, editor of the Alta California, to spend the winter in Washington as correspondent, which he accepted. On December 7 he went to Washington, had difficulty in finding a place to live. "The country is full of soldiers ; camps and regi- ments are met and passed everywhere, particularly after leav- ing Philadelphia. The crowd here is as ignorant of what is going on as they are in Milton's store after reading the Journal. Everybody is wondering what will happen next. A hundred dollars a month would be no temptation for me to stay here."
He wrote his first letter to the Alta on December 9, and the editor at the top of it made this comment: "The following is the first letter from our Washington correspondent, W. A. Wal- lace, who will remain at the Capital during the present session of Congress. The letters of this gentleman written for the Alta several years back, won for him a high reputation. The readers of the Alta in 1858 will particularly recollect his vivid letters from Fraser River written during the summer and fall of the great exodus to that locality. We have called him again from his peaceful home, away up among the valleys at the foot of the Green Mountains, where he had retired to a quiet life, and was attending the declining steps of a dear old mother, whose sands of life were ebbing away. At the summons, 'telegraph,' he has left his quiet home, and repaired to the din, bustle and hurry of Washington life, to give the readers of the Alta a lifelike his- tory of the momentous events which roll day by day over the national Capital. We shall close this introduction of an old favorite writer for the, Alta, and let him tell in his own language how he was employed at the time the summons reached him to repair to the busy scenes of active life." A part of this letter was as follows: "You directed me to pack my valise and abandon the cheerful old home, around which a thousand pleasures have circled during the short time I was permitted to enjoy it. Every-
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